5 Logo Design Tips

Much has been written and said about the Logo Design process, but to the general public and new designers alike, the logo designing process remains a complex puzzle. There is a heated debate on what constitutes a good logo or the best practices for logo design. Designing a great logo is certainly far from easy, but if you follow these handy tips then you could certainly be ready to design the next popular logo. Here are some tips for designing a great logo:

Know what your audience wants: In order to be popular, a logo needs to appeal to the companies target audience. Logo design is nothing more than bringing to life the ideas and images which your audience wants to see. So before even starting your logo design process, you should thoroughly research your target audience and understand what they want to see in a logo. After all, the main purpose of a logo is to convey message of a brand and your target audience may have a completely different idea of the message which you are trying to convey to them through your logo.

You also need to think about where the logo is going to be used the most. If the business has a fleet of vans or trucks, this needs to be thought through. How will the logo appear when viewed very small on integrated labels or invoice slips compared to very big the business plans on advertising in large media, like billboards. This can be a very important stage to consider.

Sketching and Conceptualizing: Sketching and Conceptualizing is the most important part of logo design process.

Paper based sketches play an important role in logo design process

It’s better to design a few sketches by hand and then create a logo on your computer based programs based on these raw sketches. Most designers we speak to still prefer to make initial sketches by hand rather than using a computer based program. No matter how great and advanced graphic design packages become, great design still usually comes from the old fashioned pencil and paper approach.

Don’t follow trends: A vast majority of logo designers continue imitating other popular logos. Although sometimes you can design a great logo by imitating others, most of the times it turns out as a cheap copy of other brands. Over the years designers have also noticed the herd mentality of following a trend. When working with logo design being unique is very important and this can be the difference between a beautiful and horrible logo.

Importance of Typography: Typography is one of the most important components of a logo and you must chose typography with extreme care. Over the years the trend has been leaning towards using simpler typeface.

New Microsoft logo uses simple typography and is easily recognizable

There has been debate on whether to design a custom typeface or use an existing one. Both of these work well if used rightly.

Create your Logo in Vector: The logo of a brand is expected to be used on a wide variety of items such as advertisements, t-shirts, products and packaging, etc. many designers make the mistake of designing it as a raster image and then face problems when resizing it. The best way to resize your logo is designing it in vector using Adobe Illustrator or similar. Vector based graphics can be resized and rescaled without losing their initial quality. So design your logos in a vector format in order to avoid future problems.

Here are some links to other resources where you can learn more about logo designing process: